


Infestation

by Cynder713



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 23:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16628813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cynder713/pseuds/Cynder713
Summary: Philip’s eyes narrowed. “You want us to interrogate the FBI agent who lives across the road from us.”“He is the only person we have any sort of access to that has this information.”“He knows us. He knows our children. You want us to put our entire lives here at risk?”“Do you want to put the lives of our people at risk?” Gabriel did not raise his voice, but he said it with a forcefulness Elizabeth rarely saw from him. It was enough to make Philip back down, at least for now.“There has to be another way-”“Philip, if you have one in mind I’d be very happy to hear it.”Philip stayed quiet.





	Infestation

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before 5x05, obviously, because it gave me an idea for a way the Jennings would have to come clean to Stan, which is my favourite trope for this sort of show. I did barely any research for this which I’m sure will be apparent, it was more something I needed to get down before my inspiration went away. Unbeta-ed. Hope you enjoy!

The plastic of Gabriel’s small kitchen table was cold under Elizabeth’s fingers. She pressed them down, hard, for a moment, watching the skin around her nails turn white.

“They’re using bugs to kill the crops.”

Gabriel furrowed his brow momentarily.

“It looks like they’re planning on sending already infected, seemingly healthy plants to the Soviet Union,” she continued, “and once they’ve been planted the swarms will spread and take out everything growing around them.” Her fingertips were growing numb.

Phillip, as always, was more obvious with his anger.

“They’re going to kill millions of innocents.” He shook his head and leaned forwards in his chair. “I thought they were crossing their own line when it was just sending bad seeds, but this?”

Gabriel nodded solemnly. “It seems the Centre’s fears were justified. With this new information, the next step becomes even more imperative.”

Elizabeth looked up. “Next step?”

Gabriel nodded. “We have received information on the itinerary of the first shipment of these contaminated crops. The first boat will arrive later this week.”

Phillip’s eyebrows shot up.

“And we’re just finding out now? Why didn’t the Centre contact us, we could have done something about it.”

“It doesn’t matter, though,” said Elizabeth. “All that matters is that we stop the crops from being planted.”

“And herein lies the problem,” said Gabriel. “Simply put, we don’t know which shipment contains the contaminated grain.”

“And we can’t just ignore all of it. The Americans would get suspicious, start keeping a closer eye on Morozov,” Elizabeth surmised.

“And people will _starve_.” Philip looked at her incredulously. She nodded her assent.

Gabriel looked between the two of them before speaking. “Yes, people will starve. Thus it is of utmost importance that we determine which package is unsafe,” he said.

Elizabeth tapped her fore and middle fingers twice on the table. “We could lean on Morozov, see if he knows a way to test the crops. It wouldn’t set us too far back to blow our cover with him.”

Gabriel shook his head. “You’ve said yourself, he is an expert in agriculture, not insects. There is no guarantee he would know anything of use, and you would have thrown away the good work yourselves and Tuan have done.”

Phillip’s impatience got the better of him. “Clearly you have something in mind. It must be pretty bad if you’re dancing around it like this. Tell us.”

Gabriel looked between both their faces, and nodded. “Stan Beeman.”

Philip reared back. “You can’t be serious.”

“You know me better than to think I would joke about this.”

Philip’s eyes narrowed. “You want us to interrogate the FBI agent who lives across the road from us.”

“He is the only person we have any sort of access to that has this information.”

“He knows us. He knows our _children_. You want us to put our entire lives here at risk?”

“Do you want to put the lives of our people at risk?” Gabriel did not raise his voice, but he said it with a forcefulness Elizabeth rarely saw from him. It was enough to make Philip back down, at least for now.

“There has to be another way-”

“Philip, if you have one in mind I’d be very happy to hear it.”

Philip stayed quiet.

Gabriel spoke again, gentler this time. “I do not want you to put yourselves or your children at risk. But in this instance, your job requires that you must confront Beeman and extract this information. And I want you to do your jobs.”

Philip looked to Elizabeth.

She stood up. “We’ll report back here in two days.”

 

* * *

 

 

Elizabeth could feel Philip staring at her as she drove. He didn’t speak or give any outwards sign of annoyance but she had known him for too long. When they got home, she knew, his bad mood would come to a head.

She was right.

“You were awfully quiet back there with Gabriel.”

Elizabeth killed the engine and turned to face her husband.

“You’re looking for a fight, Philip.”

“Yeah, well that’s better than sitting there like some emotionless robot! You really have nothing to say about the millions of people back home that are gonna die? Or about what our new _mission_ is gonna cost us?”

“Nothing I say is going to change anything. We have to do our jobs, like Gabriel said.”

“And doing our jobs will change _everything.”_ Philip rubbed his brow and sank back into the passenger seat, closing his eyes. After a beat, he looked back at Elizabeth, all the fight drained from his face.

“If we do this, we can never be Philip and Elizabeth Jennings again.”

“I know.”

“We’ll have to leave. No idea where the Centre would relocate us to.”

“It could be anywhere.”

Philip turned his head to face out the window, looking at nothing. “Maybe they’ll let us go back to Russia.”

Elizabeth nodded even though he couldn’t see it. “They were ready to send us home before. It would make sense. Especially once we do this for them.”

He looked back at her, met her eyes. “We have to, don’t we.”

“It’s either that, or let a lot of innocent people die.”

“Or defect.”

Once she would have been worried when Philip said things like that. Now she just gazed at him with understanding in her eyes.

He huffed a breath in through his mouth and let it out through his nose slowly.

“What are we gonna tell Henry?”

She didn’t have an answer.

 

* * *

 

 

They were lucky, well, as lucky as they could be in such a situation. Henry was staying at a friend’s house for the night and wouldn’t be back until the next evening. It would give them time to clean up if anything… went wrong.

Paige was a different matter. She was too smart, a trait Elizabeth found endlessly frustrating as proud as she was of her daughter’s intelligence. They couldn’t just send her away; they’d never done it before and she would be instantly suspicious. And for once the lack of a food drive or singalong or any other church activities that night was a disappointment to Elizabeth.

But luck struck them once again, as Paige announced her intentions to have dinner with Matthew that evening.

Elizabeth joined her husband in swallowing their disapproval and waved her daughter on her way. They stood together at the door, watching her go.

“At least she won’t be here for it.” Philip said.

Elizabeth laughed humorlessly. “I guess it’s nice that her relationship with Matthew gets to be a good thing, just this once.”

They retreated to the kitchen. Philip leaned against the sink, arms crossed.

“So do you have any idea how we should do this?”

Elizabeth braced her fingertips on the table, arms locked at the elbows, head bowed, thinking. After a moment, she shook her head to clear it and looked up at him.

“We invite him over for dinner. Maybe… maybe get him into the basement somehow, say the washing machine is broken, I don’t know. Just get him away from the windows…”

“What, so we can kill him if things go wrong?”

“It would make things easier, wouldn’t it?”

Philip stabbed a finger into the counter-top. “His son is right across the street, with our daughter, you don’t think they’d wonder where he went?”

Elizabeth sighed and straightened up. “I wasn’t being serious. We can’t kill him, it would draw so much attention to his house, his neighbors, that we may as well run back home anyway. I just thought it would be a good idea to take him somewhere where we'll be less likely to be overheard.”

Philip rubbed his hands down his face. “Yeah. I’m sorry, this is just-”

“I know.”

They locked eyes for a few seconds.

Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak and was interrupted by a knock at the door. She widened her eyes at Philip and turned to answer it. He followed behind her like a bodyguard.

Stan stood grinning on the other side, brandishing his trademark six pack of cheap beer.

Philip forced a smile. “Hey, Stan!”

Stan held the beer up with a rakish smile. “Thought I’d come over, keep the two of you company and, uh, give the two lovebirds some privacy, huh?” He winked.

Elizabeth wanted to punch him. She smiled.

“Come on in! We were just about to make dinner.”

She headed into a kitchen, catching Philip’s questioning look as she went and shaking her head slightly at it. Not yet.

Still, she caught sight of Philip locking the deadbolt on the front door.

Once in the kitchen, Philip turned his attention to Stan as Elizabeth started pulling things from the fridge. “Wanna crack open some of those beers and chop some vegetables?”

Stan nodded knowingly. “It’s a new era isn’t it, the men helping out in the kitchen.”

Philip laughed, played along. “Yeah, maybe we should let Elizabeth watch the game and we’ll take care of dinner.”

“Now let’s not go too crazy,” Elizabeth chimed in.

She handed a chopping board to Stan in exchange for one of the beers with a wink.

 

* * *

 

 

It was a strange experience, to say the least, preparing a meal with the man who was going to ruin their lives.

Stan chopped vegetables while Elizabeth prepared the lamb and Philip made gravy from scratch. It was the sort of meal they only really bothered putting together when guests were over, something to give them a little slice of life taste of just two regular American parents’ lives. It was really a waste to go to all this effort for Stan’s sake, considering. But if it was going to be their last meal in this house, before it was all torn down…

Well, there was no harm in taking their time, just this once.

 

* * *

 

 

After dinner they stayed sitting at the table, finishing off the beers and listening to Stan go on about his new flame. He was obviously toning it down for Elizabeth’s sake; even if Philip hadn’t been keeping her in the loop that would have been obvious.

Elizabeth met Philip’s eyes across the table as Stan got ready to launch into a retelling of his latest date. She flicked her eyes towards the basement door. Philip grimaced for a split second and nodded.

“Hey, Stan?”

Stan cut himself off. “Yeah?”

“We, uh, we were wondering if maybe you could come take a look at our washing machine?”

Stan raised an eyebrow.

Elizabeth jumped in. “I know, I know, it's just that I’m so sure it's something simple that’s wrong with it, so we didn’t want to call the plumber before asking for a third opinion.”

Stan nodded knowingly. “Gotta keep an eye on that budget, huh?”

Philip laughed. “Exactly.”

Stan got up with an affected groan. “Alright, let me see if I can’t save you cheapskates a little money.”

Elizabeth smiled and made to head to the basement. She gave Philip a significant look before turning away.

“First, though, let me get you another beer, can’t ask you to work thirsty,” Philip directed at Stan.

“Not gonna dispute that!”

Elizabeth slipped into the basement and gave the washing machine a once-over. She grabbed a broom from the wall and stuck it behind the machine, bending one of the pipes at a 45 degree angle. She put the broom back and stuck her head out the door.

“I hope you’re sober enough to work, Stan,” she joked.

He winked at her as he walked past, and crouched down to look at the machine.

Philip followed behind him and casually locked the door, then leaned against it.

“Yeah, looks like one of your pipes here has been damaged, it’s kinda hard to see from the angle you’d usually be looking at it but from down here…”

Elizabeth locked eyes with her husband as Stan narrated his actions to no one in particular.

She raised her eyebrows questioningly at him; he shrugged back at her. There was no obvious jumping point for the conversation they needed to have.

“Just ask him, Philip.”

“Ask me what?”

Stan stood up from the washing machine and gestured back towards it. “I think I got it working again.”

“That’s great, thanks. Stan,” Philip started.

“I'd say this calls for a celebration! I know for a fact you keep a few spares at the back of the fridge, Philip.”

He moved towards the door.

Philip sighed and stepped aside, let Stan see the lock.

He quirked an eyebrow. “Uh, I don’t think the washing machine is gonna escape, guys…”

Philip stepping in front of the door and leveled his gaze at Stan.

“Look, Stan, if this were an ideal situation we would never be having this conversation, and if it were a more ideal situation we at least wouldn’t be in such a hurry. But, as it happens, the situation is not ideal.”

“What are you getting at?”

Elizabeth quietly positioned herself strategically between Stan and the cupboard where they kept their guns.

“I just wanna make sure we set this whole thing up so it’s less painful for everyone. Nobody’s in any danger, this isn’t an ambush, and our intentions are good. You just need to hear us out and let us explain.”

“Explain what? Are you about to show me a dead body or something-?”

“We’re KGB.”

Stan halted mid-sentence, bemused smile slipping off his face.

He swung around to look to Elizabeth. She gazed calmly back at him, arms down by her side, palms open.

When she said nothing Stan looked back to Philip. He squinted his eyes. “You’re joking.”

“Я могу вас заверить, я не шучу.”*

Stan’s eyes widened.

Philip switched back to English. “The FBI would’ve had you take lessons, right?”

Stan blinked. “Yeah, yeah they did…”

“So you probably know enough to know that this isn’t just some phrase I’ve learned phonetically. Русский - мой родной язык.”**

Stan slowly brought his hand over his mouth, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them.

Elizabeth could tell he found her silence off-putting. She didn’t trust herself to speak. They needed this information, desperately, and she wasn’t going to risk blowing the whole thing. Philip had this under control.

Stan was starting to regain his footing.

“I’ve known you for years! I live across the goddamn road - hell! You’ve lived here longer than I have!”

Philip rolled his eyes. “Come on, Stan, you were on the Directorate S task force! You know what our government is capable of.”

Something clicked in Stan’s head.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Relax, we’re not going to kill you.”

“That’s supposed to relax me?”

“We just need information. Urgently. Something that we can’t get through our normal means, or, at least, it would take far too long that way.” Philip stepped forwards. Stan held his ground. “There are shipments of grain being sent to the Soviet Union from the U.S. At least one of these shipments is contaminated, with some sort of bug infestation. We know you have access to this information. Tell us which one.”

“I don’t know.”

Elizabeth flexed her hand.

Philip glanced at her briefly before focusing again on Stan. “Then you need to go and find out.”

Stan laughed, “Now I know you’re joking. You’re, what, just gonna let me leave here, go into the FBI, and hope I commit treason? What incentive have you given me?”

“People are going to starve! Civilians, not soldiers or government officials, just ordinary citizens who are being screwed over by both our governments. Thousands of them will go hungry if this plague is introduced to their fields.”

Just for a second, Elizabeth thought she saw something in Stan’s eyes, a flash of doubt, perhaps, before he suppressed it and stepped towards Philip.

“I will not betray my country.”

Philip feigned a half step back, let Stan think he was intimidated. Elizabeth saw it for what it was; a shift into a combat ready stance.

She reached into the hidden cupboard.

“I don’t know how you thought this was going to go, but here’s what's gonna happen now. First, you’re gonna unlock this door-”

He was interrupted by the _click_ of a pistol being cocked.

Stan turned around slowly and came face to face with the barrel of Elizabeth’s gun.

“You’re not gonna shoot me, Elizabeth.” Stan tried.

“Shut up.”

He shut up.

“See, Stan, it’s things like this that make me wonder how good you could possibly be at your job. For one thing, you’ve had two high level KGB officers living across the street from you for _years_ and never suspected, bar the one time you broke into our garage to look in the trunk of our car.”

“Which, by the way,” Philip chimed in, “If you had found something, you wouldn't have made it out of there alive, so maybe consider calling back up next time.”

“For another, you must know by now that, yes, I absolutely will shoot you. Without hesitation. The only reason I haven't already is because we need you to get this information for us.

“I understand your loyalty, Stan. I feel the same way about my country. But my country isn’t going after people's food. This isn't some tactical strike on a military base, this is going to kill thousands of innocents. Women and children, Stan. If you tell me you can let something like this happen, you’re more cold hearted than your government tells you we are.”

“I can’t just walk in there and request this information out of the blue-”

“Yes you can.”

“I really can’t-”

“Yes. You can.”

“Why? What makes you so sure.”

“Because your son is just across the street.”

Stan’s face closed off completely.

“... Are you threatening my son-?”

“Yes, Stan, I am threatening your son. I am threatening your son because _you_ are threatening the lives of _thousands_ of my countrymen. You think none of those casualties will be people’s sons? Daughters? What, just because you can’t see them, they’re not here in front of you, you think they matter less than Matthew?”

Stan opened his mouth to reply but Philip jumped in.

“You know, for as long as I’ve been doing this job I still thought, ‘at least America has some limits. There are some places they won't go, some lengths they won't resort to’. I thought they would play by the rules.”

Stan flinched at that.

With that small admission, Elizabeth doubled down.

“Stan, I don’t want to hurt you or your son, of course I don’t. But I am desperate. And I have done much, much worse things to get out of a desperate situation.”

“Is there really no limit to what your government can do that you will support?” asked Philip.

Stan’s facade was breaking down. Elizabeth made a judgement call, lowered her gun.

“... When your government was trying to get their hands on a chemical weapon,” Stan began. “One of the officers from the residentura came to me, because he believed what they were doing was going too far. That it would hurt both our countries. He helped us put a stop to it.” Philip and Elizabeth exchanged a look while Stan glanced down. He continued.

“If I get this information for you...”

Somewhere deep inside Elizabeth, a knot loosened.

It was already over, everything else was just semantics at this point.

 

**Author's Note:**

> * "I can assure you, I’m not kidding."
> 
> ** "Russian is my mother tongue."


End file.
